Intentional Control of Cortical Areas (ICCA)

It has been known since the 70ies that humans are able to use real-time information to alter brain function. Since recently, it is even possible to regulate cortical activation in specific brain areas using real-time fMRI. However, fMRI-neurofeedback suffers from some limitations, the high costs being only one of them. In addition, inherent delays of the BOLD hemodynamic response lead to delayed feedback, which could, in turn, protract the learning process.
To provide an alternative method without these limitations, the proposed project aims to develop an EEG-based neurofeedback procedure that enables the intentional control of localised cortical activity. Healthy subjects will be trained to produce increased or decreased current density in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) as an exemplary region. To provide a reasonable spatial resolution, a real-time version of low-resolution electromagnetic tomography (LORETA) will be developed. After the development and implementation of the ICCA procedure in phase 1, phase 2 is devoted to training and evaluation by simultaneous recording of EEG and fMRI. This allows verifying that the activity changes which are voluntarily produced by the subjects indeed occur in the intended region, the DLPFC. Phase 3 serves to test the effect of training on cognitive performance in a reasoning task that is mediated by the DLPFC.
Since ICCA allows investigating the effects of systematically enhanced or reduced activity in circumscribed neocortical brain areas, it has the potential to become a valuable tool for neuro-scientific research. Moreover, potential applications may extend to the facilitation of attention and working memory and to clinical therapy.